30 June 2026 (13 June – 30 June 2026)
It’s funny how time flies. I went with Jarek and Arya to Scout Camp at Camp Shands this year, from the 14th to the 20th of June. After we got back, it took us a little bit to recover, and of course keeping up with all the usual activities the blogging fell of. Well, no time like the present to catch up!
A gosling that hatched on 13 June.
11 Jun 2026
This awful picture was the best I could do of a red crested woodpecker that was happily pecking away at the oak tree while Meagan and I were doing animal chores this morning. It is about 30x zoom, and since my arms were not in fact a tripod, it’s a bit shaky.
10 June 2026
We started off this morning with a new gosling! It had got itself out of the shell overnight. With this batch of eggs, I tried a different technique, keeping the humidity lower, and it has been working out much better. The last several egg batches had very poor hatch rates (12%), so we gotta find a way to get these numbers up!
9 June 2026
Today was largely a recovery day for Jarek. He was in the throws of the cold, and skipped swimming. Evan was off to Soccer practice instead of swimming for a three hour camp. Arya came back from swimming, then headed out to a Grandma day with Grandma!
I cut open my rosemary loaf this morning, and it came out quite well. My harshest critic, Meagan, who told me she didn’t like rosemary in bread, said that she did, in fact like it! Highest complement indeed!
8 June 2026
Baby goats playing with mama!
A busy day today, Swim practice in the morning, music lessons in the afternoon, and Scouts in the evening, with plenty in between!
31 May 2026
The usual start to the morning today, moving the birds and letting them out.
I had to help the goslings out again, they still haven’t figured out the ramp. One of them later got its foot stuck in the fence. It seemed to have pulled or strained it, it wasn’t working quite right. So we put that one in the baby pen to keep it away from the bigger birds while it recovers. Evan said it was doing a bit better. I’ll check on it tomorrow.
We had company over coffee in the morning, had a nice conversation with our neighbor. He’s going to help us teach the kids some subjects in the home school, which is pretty awesome.
Then it was out to the pool. I think the battle with the mustard algae has turned the corner. I’d left the pump off for a day and a half, and the water was pretty clear, although not crystal clear. I had previously added clarifier to help the particulates settle/filter. There was a good layer on the bottom of the pool when I started.
You can see the line here where I’ve vacuumed and have not yet. I got it all done, and adjusted the water chemistry a bit and told the kids they could swim. They were very excited!
Upon the recommendation of a neighbor, I got a PoolRX mineral algicide and installed that in the pump body. That is supposed to help keep the algae down, so we’ll see how that goes!
After pool clean up time, the kids helped out by cleaning up the house for our Family Dinner night, where we host a number of guests for dinner. Then they went swimming and had fun. Garrett worked on his swimming with Meagan. Jarek performed the Star Spangled Banner on the violin for us, and Evan played the Mysterious Casbah for us on Piano.
While the kids did that, I took some time to nerd out and move Jellyfin to a postgresql database. Hopefully that will stop it from crashing as much. Nothing more irritating than being gone and getting a text from Meagan that the movies won’t play!
After dinner, it was coloring time for a bit before bedtime!
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29 May 2026
Today started out like most other days, with the animal chores.
I took a video of the geese, ducks, and chickens being let out of their tractor this morning. They were very excited to be free!
Radnal of course was my helper.
Evan and Meagan were busy with the goats.
We then checked the mail, because that’s what you do.
After the animals were tended to it was off to the pool to check on it.
Clarity is improving, lots of particulates/dead algae in the water still. I added some more chlorine and some algicide and clarifier.
Tomorrow I will do another vacuum pass. I have some other things coming to assist with the pool, but it’s probably ‘good enough’ for the kids by Sunday.
One of our neighbors had some trees cut down. We arranged for them to drop off the branches. The goats really enjoy them. Then we grind up the branches with a chipper to add organic matter to the soil.
After that, it was off to the homeschool meet up for Meagan and the kids.
I was having a look at one of the trees that is having some issues. Looks like this one will be coming down sooner than later. Another fun project, yay! The one on the other side of the house has a similar issue, so maybe I will try to tackle them both together.
In the afternoon, we did a family DnD session with Jarek and our neighbor.
Then it was time to do evening animal chores. Zanzi, the white goat, prefers to have treehouse dining.
The goose was giving me the hairy eyeball when I went to check on them. They don’t really like being locked up for the evening, but better safe than sorry with the fox on the loose around us.
Saturday we will be up early as the big three kids have a swim meet starting at 7!
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See the video here:
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We did one of Jarek’s Cub Scout adventures, cast iron cooking. The requirement for him was to cook a meal over a fire. We started the fire using a flint and steel. Jarek learned a lot about building a fire and having the fuel ready to go. It was a good introduction to fire basics.
We made an impromptu stove with a couple bricks.
While waiting for the wood to burn down, Garrett came over and, being super cute, asked “Can I join?”
Arya got in on the cooking as well.
Randal got the first part of his third tooth out! We will be very happy when it’s all the way out, as the teething process has been a bit frustrating for all involved. Randal has been sitting up and crawling about now. He’s working on pulling himself up to a standing position. He’s done that once or twice so far.
A happy Garrett at Fox Meadow park during a home school meet up play session.
Garrett went with Meagan and Arya to dance class. While waiting for Arya to finish her dance lesson, he picked up a book and said, “This is my book” and took it inside to read.
